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The kids are drunk, acting like adults

Three poems by Robbie Forsyth

Robbie Forsyth studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.
Robbie Forsyth studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.

Literature 309B, Modern to Multicultural American Literature

  • In the upper division Lit classes
  • there’s a loose interpretation of truth.
  • The instructor faintly prompts discussion
  • and each student speaks, one at a time, as
  • in a bookish courtroom, kids on trial.
  • It reminds me of the halfway houses,
  • rehabs, and camps for dangerous children;
  • those helpless counselors, faintly prompting,
  • and teenage junkies, just off heroin
  • pitching lofty love advice to young drunks.
  • Some lying, some too smart for their own good,
  • in for a wash and a certificate
  • as if it makes life easier out there.
  • Some dying, desperate enough to pray.

Passing the Fitting Room

  • A woman is pulling jeans up white thighs.
  • They are too tight and she is bent
  • squishing the dough of her legs into unforgiving denim.
  • Tired breasts toss and heave in her shirt and
  • a bright thong invades her furry behind
  • like a snake strangling a fat bird.
  • Craters and veins, patches of blue and yellow and purple
  • painted on the wide canvas.
  • As she slowly tips over, an impossible color of
  • dyed red hair covers her face upside down.
  • Her son, by the open door, wonders why.

New Years Eve

  • The adults are drunk and
  • acting like children
  • and the kids are drunk,
  • acting like adults
  • acting like children.

Robbie Forsyth is the son of a grocery clerk and a third-grade teacher. He studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.  

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Robbie Forsyth studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.
Robbie Forsyth studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.

Literature 309B, Modern to Multicultural American Literature

  • In the upper division Lit classes
  • there’s a loose interpretation of truth.
  • The instructor faintly prompts discussion
  • and each student speaks, one at a time, as
  • in a bookish courtroom, kids on trial.
  • It reminds me of the halfway houses,
  • rehabs, and camps for dangerous children;
  • those helpless counselors, faintly prompting,
  • and teenage junkies, just off heroin
  • pitching lofty love advice to young drunks.
  • Some lying, some too smart for their own good,
  • in for a wash and a certificate
  • as if it makes life easier out there.
  • Some dying, desperate enough to pray.

Passing the Fitting Room

  • A woman is pulling jeans up white thighs.
  • They are too tight and she is bent
  • squishing the dough of her legs into unforgiving denim.
  • Tired breasts toss and heave in her shirt and
  • a bright thong invades her furry behind
  • like a snake strangling a fat bird.
  • Craters and veins, patches of blue and yellow and purple
  • painted on the wide canvas.
  • As she slowly tips over, an impossible color of
  • dyed red hair covers her face upside down.
  • Her son, by the open door, wonders why.

New Years Eve

  • The adults are drunk and
  • acting like children
  • and the kids are drunk,
  • acting like adults
  • acting like children.

Robbie Forsyth is the son of a grocery clerk and a third-grade teacher. He studies literature at Cal State San Marcos.  

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The latest copy of the Reader

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